"I still feel bad now. It eats me up every single day. I struggle to see people breastfeeding because it makes me feel so guilty that my body couldn't do something that it basically should," said Kate Van Ingen.

After six weeks of "hell" trying to breastfeed her first baby Jakeb, now 2, she was emotionally and physically worn out.

"Every two hours I'd be trying to feed him but there just wasn't enough milk coming in so I'd be expressing and still there was just a tiny amount so I'd have to top up with formula. I felt like such a failure."

While Mrs Van Ingen, from Lara near Geelong, felt hopelessly isolated as she battled to have her baby feed naturally, she is not alone.

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Indeed, journalist and mother Madeleine Morris says these stories are so common she was compelled to write a book supporting parents who agonise over giving their babies formula.

"The way it's been promoted to mothers, we feel like breastfeeding is the single most important thing that you can do for your child and if you don't do it then your child will end up sick, fat and stupid," said Ms Morris, who breastfed her daughter for seven weeks but switched to formula when she could not produce enough milk.

In Guilt-Free Bottle-Feeding, Ms Morris and co-author Dr Sasha Howard - a paediatrician and mother of two - maintain that the pressure on mums to breastfeed is unacceptable, and that while breast milk is still the best option whenever possible, bottle-fed babies can grow up to be just as happy and healthy.

"I've spoken to women who feel guilty 30 years later for not being able to breastfeed their babies. I've spoken to mothers who persisted for months and months in excruciating pain and then finally gave up and said, 'I just wish that I could get that time back with my baby instead of looking at her and wincing and dreading her coming to the breast.'"

Ms Morris, an Australian-born former BBC journalist who now works for the ABC in Melbourne, said that the "breastfeeding at all costs" mentality has led to the benefits being heavily promoted while other complicating factors are downplayed.

She cited media coverage of a recent Cambridge University study - which found women who breastfed were 50 per cent less likely to develop postnatal depression - and the failure to highlight the finding that those most at risk of depressive illness were mothers who planned to feed naturally but were unable to do so.

"The vast majority of women want to breastfeed because it is held up in our society as being the ultimate statement of whether you're a good mother or not. The sense of failure if you can't do it is just so keenly felt and it can be very damaging,"

However, Jennifer James, a lactation consultant and counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, said the pressure came from mothers themselves.

"This whole notion of someone else making them feel guilty is a nonsense. If you're a woman who feels very vulnerable, who's desperately trying to find out how to breastfeed because nothing seems to be working, then any message about breast milk being best for babies and what they need to optimally grow is going to make you feel like a failure," Dr James said.

"But the fact remains that breast milk and breastfeeding is the biological norm and that babies are born to breastfeed. Their bodies are designed to develop optimally on their mother's milk."

Dr James said the World Health Organisation recommended exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and that 95 per cent of women are physiologically able to breastfeed so most babies should not require formula. Topping up with a bottle could lead to a "vicious cycle" in which breast milk supplies diminish.

"The women who don't even try, they're the ones who tend to hit out and try to find someone to blame," she said.

In a foreword for the book, which comes out on Monday, Dr Nicole Highet - founder of the Centre of Perinatal Excellence - called for more support for mothers, and for breastfeeding messages to be delivered in a sensitive manner.

"There is still a lot of spoken and unspoken pressure and criticism surrounding how we feed our children, and whether we are 'good and natural' mothers who are truly 'giving their child the best start' by breastfeeding." she said.

Mrs Van Ingen said it was difficult to stop breastfeeding but it was the right decision for her and her son. "They say breast is best but if you don't have anything it's not better."